8-year-old girl was stripped naked and searched by Virginia prison guards when she went to visit her father: 'This is an act of child abuse'
DILLWYN, VIRGINIA: An 8-year-old girl was stripped-searched by staff at Buckingham Correctional Center in Dillwyn, Virginia when she visited the facility to meet her father.
The girl was accompanied by her father's girlfriend when she visited the prison to meet him. Both of them were standing in a queue with other visitors awaiting entrance to the prison when a drug detection dog circled her father's girlfriend, which normally meant that she would need to be strip-searched.
When the girlfriend asked them if the youngster needed to be searched as well, the prison staff discussed with their captain and told the pair that the 8-year-old needed to be searched naked because they needed to be sure she was not in possession of illegal substances.
The girl did not know what the term "strip-search" meant and asked her father's girlfriend what it meant. "I told her, that means you have to take all of your clothes off or you’re not going to be able to see your dad," she said.
The child started crying and sent a text to her mother, which was reviewed by the Pilot.
"Hey Mom, [I] am so mad the jail had to strip me with all of my clothes off this doesn’t make no sinc [sic]," she texted her mom, to which the latter replied, "Did they make you take all of your clothes off?"
"Yes, all of my clothes off," the 8-year-old responded.
Although state policy does not particularly call the intrusive search of minors illegal, the general consensus among prison officials was to avoid searching children.
"It’s generally regarded in the criminal justice field that you do not strip-search young children," said Daniel Macallair, the head of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. "I mean most adults, certainly most adults who work in the field of child welfare would know better—that this is an act of child abuse."
Department of Corrections Director of Communications Lisa Kinney confirmed that the officers involved didn't have the clearance to conduct such a search and the incident was "deeply troubling." She apologized to the child and her family. "[We] will be taking immediate disciplinary action against the person responsible," she told The Pilot in an email.